The present invention relates to a method for producing highly palatable dry cat foods, by providing dry cat food preparations having specific compositions and/or texture properties, and by adding thereto palatability enhancers, so as to obtain said highly palatable dry cat foods. Preferably, the present invention provides highly palatable dry cat foods having a rigidity below or equal to about 100 N/mm.
The present invention relates to complete and balanced dry foods for cats.
Pets are well taken care of by their owners who provide them a proper selection of foods. Those foods include not only their usual diet, but also any supplements, treats, and toys. When designing foods for pets such as dogs and cats, optimal health and wellness are important goals. Nevertheless, the most nutritious pet food is of little value if the animals reject or refuse to eat the food, or if the pet's consumption of food is restricted because the pet finds the food unpalatable. Pets, like humans, are attracted to and eat more regularly and easily foods which they find palatable. In this respect, cats especially are very sensitive to food palatability, so that their feeding behaviour has often been referred to as “finicky”. Therefore, palatability is an extremely important criterion for pet consumption, and there is a continuous need for increasing palatability of pet food, especially of cat food.
Animal foods (or pet foods) typically contain flavour compositions to increase the palatability thereof, and to make them appealing or appetizing to pets. It is known that palatability of dry pet food may be enhanced by some palatable components. As an example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,186,964, Gierhart discloses a palatability composition comprising sodium acid pyrophosphate to improve cat food palatability. Another example is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,690,988 patent, wherein palatability of the cat food is increased by adding a choline compound.
Continuing efforts are made to provide pet foods with improved palatability. And, adding flavours is not the only solution to increase pet food palatability. For example, US patent application No. 2008/057152 describes a method of ensuring acceptance of a cat food by providing specific macronutrient content parameters. It thus appears that there are different ways to enhance cat food palatability, resulting in more or less satisfying levels of food consumption by cats.
As a consequence, there is a continuing need for improving pet food palatability, especially cat food palatability, and it is of high interest to find palatability-improving conditions that are acceptable for the manufacturers, e.g., at moderate costs.